Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands”
should be the guardian of the girdling ocean, maintaining its highest rights and liberties in the face of all foes. And so may it ever remain!
What stories I could tell, had I the time and space, of heroic deeds “unwritten and unsung” performed by the men of the Fleet, not only in the past, but now!—now, in these actual present days, when great London, plunged to the neck in a flood of gold, poured in for the help, healing, and comfort of our fighting men on land and sea, is striving, like a giant caught in a net, to disentangle its sacred duties from its selfish pleasures,—trying to realise in its vague way that War is really War! Of “Tommy” one hears much; but of “Jack Tar” less,—though they are close comrades in the one spirit of devotion to duty, and each has his own burden of difficulties to bear,—his own sphere of danger to surmount and to master. The story of brave Jack Cornwell thrilled every heart,—putting well into the shade the similar exploit of “Casabianca,” of whom, when we were children, we all learned, in the verse of Felicia Hemans:—
“The boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but him had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck
Shone round him o’er the dead.”
and